


On the level

by gin_daiquiri



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 07:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15383850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gin_daiquiri/pseuds/gin_daiquiri
Summary: Steve got the letters that should have been his.





	On the level

**Author's Note:**

> Title for the Leonard Cohen’s song from his last album.
> 
> Maybe it was not the best way to return to writing but it felt right when I wrote it, so I’ll share it anyway.
> 
> I’m also a panicking person with low self esteem so if you think my writing sucks I welcome pm not public ones)

Wakanda air is thick and sharp with heat, it seeps through his bones, settles there, constructs his breathing now. But it felt good the first time he breathed it in. Different anyway. When he stepped out of the plane, blood dry and annoying on various parts of his body, it felt liberating. As different as it could be from the New York humidity or Washington dry air. Two days later he is still sore, bone tired but every second struck by the brightness of everything around him, the brilliance of the future and the way it, in one tiny part, still scares the shit out of him. The room provided to him is clear and almost empty, that’s just the way it suits his current state of mind. That’s when he gets the first letter. It arrived like an insult. Delivered casually like a every other mail.

“ _Hey Steven,_

_Fuck you._

_T.S._ ”

His first emotion was panic. He knows, how the hell he knows, what’s the plan, where is the safest place? His mind goes in circles, new world, new politics all that jazz, where is safe? The rest were more like bullets. They arrived after. After the Thing. Bunch of them. A whole bloody tiny pack of handwritten letters. From Tony fucking Stark. He didn’t like to swear that much but pain, raw and ugly, made his thoughts messy and uncontrollable. Unpleasant.

“ _Hey Steven,_

_I do understand the fun of me writing a letter by hand to you after you gave me that fucking outdated phone. I thought fuck you, sorry if it offends your old man rules on swearing, I don’t fucking care, you will get any text from me only if the world will be going up in flames. You had no right to write me your own though so I decided to take it into my own hands._

_And repeat fucking fuck fuck you and your outdated letters and your fucking shield and you your fucking self._

_T.S._ ”

That letter was unexpectedly funny, he sat on the balcony of his room, air thick and humid around him and smiled. That letter felt like Tony was back. Like they still could fix it. It was before other letters.

“ _Hello Steven,_

_I have no idea why I’m writing this again. Alcohol is a very good friend but sometimes it still makes you do stupid things like writing stuff like this. Ever since Afghanistan I thought hell is all heat and dry air and fucking sand everywhere._

_But since our last meeting I might be changing my opinion. Maybe hell is so cold you feel in your bones, in your fingers, in your teeth - everywhere. Is that how you felt when you went into the ice???? Is that what you did it for? So you won’t be lonely in your fucking cold world?_

_T.S_.”

FRIDAY was not programmed to send these letters. She did it anyway. Much like with JARVIS Tony never seemed to be able to create things that don’t have a mind of their own.

“ _Hello Steven,_

_I do sincerely hope that you appreciate that I call you that, outdated and all._

_Mers (my therapist if you were wondering) told me that any way of coping is good enough if it doesn’t hurt you more. I chose letters because she would have liked it. She had the best smile in the universe, I remember being quite a handful as a child, but I still remember the feel of her smiling at me._

_Your friend took her away from me._

_I don’t think I can write these letters anymore._ ”

He forced himself to open the fourth letter only two days later. Meanwhile the world was shook by the simultaneous loss they all had to endure. He had to endure.

Bucky said ‘Steve’ like a prayer when he turned into ash. Like all good Catholics out there, turned into ash.

He declined thinking about it. There were too many things to be taken care of apart from remembering the lightheaded feeling he got when in this bloody new world he first heard Bucky saying “Punk, I missed your stupid face”.

Fourth letter was written on an hotel (Four Seasons Mumbai) note paper, preciously sharp and collected lines of Tony’s handwriting gotten a bit uneven on this one.

“ _Hello Steven,_

_You know, the bonus point of being a functional alcoholic is that no one can fucking guess._

_Mers says that we are not the type of people who throw themselves crazy at parties or start bubbling around after the second bottle. We are the type of people who like control, need control more than anything else, and no matter how it sounds, being in control over yourself losing control is the most assuring feeling on Earth. You build tolerance over time and you know your limit, you don’t throw up or have really bad hangovers because you are in control. You laugh and tell stories, going for charming because your defenses should be down. But they are not. You are in control of every drunken smile, move or word you say. That for a long period of time made me feel better about myself. Like right know when courage that I need to write this letter finally came after a bottle (maybe not one though, but you knew me) of prosecco. You feel stronger, better than other people who fall, stumble and make embarrassing phone calls, you’re funny and sharp and finally in some fucking control._

_On the worst days it feels like you have something inside your chest, it’s heavy and has a mind of its own. You wake up at 4 am and can’t stop panicking, every scenario, the worst scenario, is playing in your head like in a fucking theater. You pour yourself a drink, then a second one and then it eases up, you are finally okay to sleep but at the same time you’re eaten up by guilt of this lonely drink you’ve taken._

_Maybe I should write a fucking novel about what being drunk gives you, that would be swell. Would go awesome with my overall appearance. But I guess you knew that already, even before. Again, solemnly fuck you._

_T.S._ ”

The world was coping. Better than he had expected, better than he could ever did anyway.

With T’Challa gone Wakanda was different. Busy anyway with the restoring and everything. The results of his request. His fault. His decision, arrogant as it was, but still his. Such a stupid way of looking at life when you lost so much.

He opened the last letter five weeks after Tony fucking Stark went into space (again) and never came back.

‘“ _Steve,_

_Have you ever thought that all that poetry and literature around us promises us that feeling, love as they tend to call it, though really it’s a redemption, not love what we strive for._

_I don’t know I thought being in love with you will somehow heal me, turn me into a better person somehow. But it didn’t._

_I thought that every second you spent with me made me a better person. Or at least an easier person. But it didn’t._

_I realize it only now, we are who we are. Love doesn’t fix that. I just thought that maybe I deserved something good with you. That’s probably the result of me drinking some Gavi before writing this, but I really think these letters will take their time while I’m burning them._

_T.S.”_.

The world was moving on.

Steve sat on his balcony, breathed in the humid air and felt it. That ugly feeling of a heart losing something that might have been but never happened anyway.

He swallowed, stood up, letter still in his fingers. Breathed in, slowly (like Sam showed him), breathed out.

There was still work to do.


End file.
